Pitt Tonight shines spotlight on Women’s Empowerment Week – University of Pittsburgh The Pitt News

Student Government Board Vice President Sydney Harper is awestruck when she thinks about the women who have come before her and left behind inspirational legacies.

On Sundays women empowerment-themed episode of Pitt Tonight, Harper reeled off numerous names from her ultimate inspiration, Harriet Tubman, to queen Oprah Winfrey, to Meryl Streep and Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I am someone who has always gotten chills when it comes to thinking about amazing women who have done amazing things, and Im surrounded by them all the time at Pitt, Harper said. I wanted to make a space where it is celebratory and also explanatory in terms of where are we, where have we been and where are we going.

To celebrate these pioneering ladies, Student Government Board in association with other student groups including Pitt Program Council, Campus Womens Organization and Black Action Society is hosting its first Womens Empowerment Week from March 20 to 24. Harper and 13 others on the women empowerment planning committee have been planning for this since November 2016.

The one big reason we called it Womens Empowerment Week was because we wanted to use the acronym WE because empowerment of everyone comes when everyone supports it, Harper said. So nothing this week is limited to just women because we want everyone to be a part of empowering women and all students.

The purpose of the week is to create a space for all students to come together: to network, brainstorm, look at art, engage and leave feeling empowered. There will be six events throughout the week including a comedy show by Leslie Jones and a screening of the movie Girl Rising. Additionally, Womens Empowerment Week will include the GAL-A, the Pitt Womens Leadership Experience retreat and an art gallery featuring work related to themes of womens empowerment.

More than 200 students gathered to watch Harper kick off the week, along with Geri Allen, Grammy-nominated pianist and Pitt Jazz Studies professor, and Sidney Cannon-Bailey, a fourth-year bioengineering major.

In between guest segments, Cannon-Bailey showed Irwin how to play the asparagus piano and make elephant toothpaste innovative science experiments fit for humanities majors. She said it can be hard for women to find the support they need in STEM fields, but when someone is giving her a hard time, she asks herself how best to prove them wrong. The show concluded with a dance performance by the YaBaso African Dance Team.

In addition, more than 10 women-focused groups and student organizations such as Resident Student Association and Women in Business were invited to be a part of the show and hang up flyers and posters at the event.

The whole point is to get everyone in one room to promote the week, and to shine a light on people who dont get the light they deserve, Jesse Irwin, host of Pitt Tonight, said.

After the show, Liz Chiyka, a first-year biology major, said she and her three friends initially went to watch an episode of the show, but left excited for the upcoming week of WE events.

I think its really important to recognize all the different facets of womens empowerment from dancing to science and STEM fields which I thought [Pitt Tonight] did a really good job highlighting, Chiyka said.

Irwin said Pitt Tonight is run by women and the show would be nothing without them. According to Irwin, who is a comedian himself, comedy is a tough industry to break into because it is filled with men who talk about women. Before the shows conclusion, he thanked the women who inspire him, including Pitt Tonight Executive Producer Hayley Ulmer.

Ulmer said after the show that she was the one who pitched the idea to Harper to have a womens empowerment-themed episode, and that the timing couldnt be more perfect.

I know the guests talked about how womens empowerment meant going after opportunities and equality, but to me, womens empowerment also is about supporting and listening to each other, Ulmer said.

The rest of the week will feature one event each day.

Pitt Womens Leadership Experience retreat, which about 80 women have signed up to attend this year, March 24 to March 25. Students had to complete an application by March 5 to attend the retreat, which was created by Senior Vice Chancellor Kathy Humphrey.

To Harper, the goal of having the Womens Empowerment Week is personal. She said she has left leadership and networking events feeling, Im awesome, youre awesome, were awesome, lets do this.

She wants everyone to leave feeling the exact same way.

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Pitt Tonight shines spotlight on Women's Empowerment Week - University of Pittsburgh The Pitt News